


Life After Dawn

by Commander_Freddy



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Deepthroating, Face-Fucking, Ferdibert Week (Fire Emblem), Flashbacks, Frottage, Horseback Riding, M/M, Post-Canon, Stable Duty, enemies to hookup to friends to lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-05
Updated: 2019-12-05
Packaged: 2021-02-24 15:49:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21680461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Commander_Freddy/pseuds/Commander_Freddy
Summary: Hubert hadn't ever considered what life would look like after Those Who Slither were vanquished. He certainly never considered the effect going off to fight in a secret war would have on those kept in the dark.And the idea that, someday, his biggest concern would be missing the way things used to be with Ferdinand von Aegir would have once seemed a farce.But everything's different now, isn't it?(Written for Ferdibert Week 2019 Day 5: Horses)
Relationships: Ferdinand von Aegir/Hubert von Vestra
Comments: 20
Kudos: 382





	Life After Dawn

**Author's Note:**

> My sincere apologies to anyone who knows anything about horses, because I really do not.

Ferdinand has a new horse, and all the world must know about it. Her name is Philharmonia, her coat is something called a “liver chestnut”, and her bloodline stretches back further than Hubert’s. He does not particularly want to know these facts, but he does, because Ferdinand von Aegir has never in his life kept any information to himself. Seeing him gush so openly about this creature – something which really could be classified as a weapon of the state, considering her cavalry pedigree – makes Hubert feel a little better about not informing Ferdinand of their war on Those Who Slither until it was already over. But then he remembers the silence of that conversation, all the holes where memories should have been, and that look on Ferdinand’s face when he realised he could have been helping him and Edelgard for their past few months of hell.

They hadn’t really spoken much in the three weeks since then.

And then a caravan from Aegir to Enbarr had, carrying with it records of the late Duke’s many, many failings, a truly depressing share of the last harvest, and that damned horse. Born during the war, it was now of age to begin saddle breaking. A “late yearling” Ferdinand had called it, and for some reason that did not mean the damn thing was a year old. Who decided horse terms, anyway? There certainly seemed to be no shortage of them, from how Ferdinand kept prattling on about hand-heights and hackamores and conformation and an infinity of other things that Hubert should _not_ be thinking about when planning security for the upcoming winter festival.

He slammed his quill down upon his desk and then followed it with his head.

It wasn’t the security detail that was bothering him, especially not now that they had finally eradicated Those Who Slither, and it wasn’t even Ferdinand’s incessant horse-talk, not really. It was more that it was _only_ horse-talk, and had been ever since their last conversation in private. The one where Hubert had finally told him why he and Edelgard and the Professor had been run so severely ragged in the months after the war, while the Prime Minister carried blithely on with matters of the state.

Had he somehow implied that Ferdinand’s work was less important than their fight, despite the stability of Fódlan resting nearly entirely on his shoulders? Or was it just that eternal need for Ferdinand to be front and centre of everything? Did he see it as a missed opportunity to prove himself? He might have gotten over that childish “rivalry” with Edelgard, but there was still a fire burning within Ferdinand, he could see it every time he looked into those warm eyes. Ferdinand still needed to be the best at something. Or, at the very least, he had to be indispensable.

But instead of fucking saying what was bothering him, why he and Hubert hadn’t taken tea together in _weeks_ , he was just prancing around on that stupid pony.

Hubert lifted his head from the shadows of his pity party. It wasn’t about the horse. Ferdinand would have been just as avoidant if the damned creature had never arrived, he just knew it. The stupid thing just happened to provide the perfect cover, an ever-present excuse for every ounce of Ferdinand’s attention.

He was just going to have to bite the blade and be the one to start the conversation, wasn’t he? Hubert rubbed his forehead. Would Ferdinand even listen to him? Knowing the man’s skill with horses, he might even be able to get the filly (was that even the right word?) to kick up a fuss right as Hubert steered his conversation into unwanted territory.

Or maybe he would actually listen. Not like Hubert would know, since he hadn’t even tried to start up a proper conversation since their last one. No, he’d just let Ferdinand take the lead, and then had the audacity to be annoyed when he spoke of things he was interested in.

Coward.

Hubert looked to the window. Beyond the frost-crawled glass, the first light of dawn was beginning to glow over Enbarr. He’d stayed up all night, for the first time in a long time. The security briefing under his hands had been completed hours ago. His chair screeched something awful as he slammed it back and forced himself to his feet. There was one good thing about pulling an unintentional all-nighter, he supposed.

Ferdinand would already be up.

Hubert had never understood the attraction to dawn that seemed to plague the more athletic members of society. It did not seem to make sense that one would be able to train more effectively before the sun had finished rising, but despite its impenetrability, the idea had definitely taken root in the palace of Enbarr, whose stables were crawling with people. Ferdinand’s concept of an equestrian academy was beginning to take shape, if only in the lessons he organised for the stablehands. Everything was so much louder than it had been before the war. His first reaction was to dismiss it as a disorganised disaster, but forcing himself to listen revealed a different story. The kids rushing between stalls may have been excited and distracted, but they all knew where they were going. And the elderly cavalier surrounded by far too many children was not being accosted, but was instead trying to shout over the din to show them the safest way to stand in stirrups.

Something within Hubert began to beat faster at the sight of everything Ferdinand had accomplished while he had been busy spilling blood underground. There was no way there had been this many stablehands employed at the palace. They had to be bringing along friends and siblings, letting the scullerymaids and snow-shovellers join in. Goddess, maybe Ferdinand would end up establishing a system of free education in his lifetime.

“If I pass my cross-country test, can I ride Philharmonia?”

Ferdinand’s laughter rung out across the equestrian yard, echoing from down where the training pens stood. His voice was never patronising, not even to the blithe ignorance of his latest question. Instead, he sounded genuinely excited that someone was interested in his horse.

“Oh, how I would love to share my princess with you all!” Ferdinand replied, Hubert following his voice between an absolute mess of fences and mud. “But I am afraid I am not yet confident in how saddle-broken she is. She may be able to keep herself from tossing me into the dirt, but I would never forgive myself if she were to throw one of my lovely students.”

There he was. In the furthest schooling pen, presumably to keep Philharmonia away from any potential feuds with the other horses, Ferdinand sat astride his newest obsession, an absolute vision in the sunrise. It was cliché, Hubert thought, to compare ginger hair to the dawn, but thoughts of lyric and literature were far from his mind whenever he looked to Ferdinand. To see him with his back to the sun, practically purple in the shadow, but caressed by the haloed orange of the sun over Enbarr was almost ludicrous. It was ludicrous, all of it. A grown man gallivanting about with hair, long and unbound to flap like a flag in the breeze, awake before anyone should be and already over-dressed in his embroidered jodhpurs and jacket-over-waistcoat-over-cravat-over-lace-lined-shirt… It should look like a joke, not a dream.

But here they were.

“Hubert!” Ferdinand called, his features split by surprise.

Philharmonia trotted up to the fence where he stood at what seemed like no input from Ferdinand at all. But judging by how she eyed Hubert, tossing her head and whuffing, she certainly hadn’t come of her own volition.

“What in the world are you doing down here?” Ferdinand asked.

For some reason, the fact that his presence was so utterly bizarre to him made Hubert’s gut clench. Had they really drifted so far apart?

“I needed to clear my head after being shut inside my study all night,” Hubert replied. “And I believe it was you who kept trying to convince me of the relaxing properties of horse riding when we were in the thick of the war.”

Ferdinand looked down at him, blinking in an expression that seemed open, emotional, but which Hubert could not read. It was terrifying.

“Oh,” was all he said. And then, “Yes, that was indeed me. I… was thinking of riding out with Philharmonia today, she needs a great deal more practice on the forest trails. If you don’t mind waiting for me to get her ready…”

The half-request hung between them, and Hubert found himself growing embarrassed at how badly he wanted to draw it out, force Ferdinand to invite him, hear something from him that wasn’t about the damn horse for _once_. But, thankfully, the rest of Hubert could tell how childish that was.

“I’d love to ride with you,” he replied. Ferdinand gave him a smile, but he did not seem any more relaxed. “I feel I have been neglecting my own steed as of late.” Hubert watched Ferdinand’s face carefully. “Despite my responsibilities, it still feels unfair, especially considering how well she served me during the war.”

“You still think of her as your horse?”

Hubert felt his blood turn cold.

“I know I gave her off to you and your equestrian school, and I really do stand by that,” said Hubert, looking around at the chaos that surrounded them. “You’ve certainly done better by her than I ever could. But she did carry me through battle many times over. I am not so cruel as to forget a bond like that.”

“I still think of her as your horse, too,” said Ferdinand. Almost too quiet to hear over the hubbub. “But I’m afraid the students have taken a great liking to her. The kind of temperament needed to deal with a mage on one’s back is exactly the kind of temperament looked for in horses that work with children, I’m afraid.”

Hubert offered him a smile, and was surprised at how easily it came.

“No need for apologies,” he said. “Really, I’m glad to see her in such high demand. I’m glad to see all of this, when you come down to it,” he added. “It seems like something out of a dream.”

“So why don’t you take my horse,” Ferdinand blurted.

Hubert raised his eyebrows.

“Philharmonia? I thought you didn’t want anyone else-”

“No,” said Ferdinand. “Waltraud.”

Hubert swallowed. The Duchess Waltraud von Aegir was the finest horse in any stable in Fódlan. Each of her foals sold for more than the actual Duchess von Aegir had brought as dowry, and her husband had tried to rewrite his will specifically to stop Ferdinand from inheriting her once he realised how the winds were blowing. Not that any of that had stopped Edelgard from requisitioning the horse and immediately handing it over to her best cavalier. Ferdinand had ridden that horse throughout the entire war, in every battle including his Holy Knight Certification test, never once letting her come to the slightest harm. In nearly all of Hubert’s memories of the war, Ferdinand was either astride Waltraud, taking care of her, or talking about her. Not to mention all the times he had dragged Hubert along with him to stable duty to try and improve his own terrible equestrian skills.

“You’d let me ride Waltraud?” Hubert asked.

“If you think you’re up to it,” said Ferdinand. And he tossed his hair back over his shoulder with a smile, strained, but with the beginnings of some mirth in the edges of his eyes.

This was a test. This could be nothing but a test, and failing it would have severe consequences.

“Of course,” said Hubert. “After how long you’ve spent training her, I have the utmost confidence.”

“Oh?” said Ferdinand, his eyes slightly colder. “So you won’t be needing my assistance in saddling her?”

Hubert swallowed.

“I wouldn’t want to bother you,” he said. “You have your own tasks to attend to…” Ferdinand was made of stronger stuff than him. He was going to make him say it. “But it certainly would be easier if you were to help.”

Ferdinand was off Philharmonia in an instant.

“Alright, then,” he said. “Let us see if Philharmonia can remember how to be patient while you remember the difference between a latigo and a billet.”

It felt strange to be standing side by side with Ferdinand again. They hadn’t even been physically distant since Those Who Slither had been dealt with. It was just that other kind of distance that had grown up between them after Hubert had told Ferdinand that he had been kept in the dark. Was it visible between them? As they stood either side of 23-hand horse, Hubert found himself thinking of a thousand things he could say, none of them in any way reasonable to say in a stable full of strangers. Instead, silence reigned, and did so after Hubert had finished tacking Ferdinand’s monolith of a mount, stashing a blanket and the food he’d grabbed from the kitchens in Waltraud’s spacious saddlebags. As they saddled Philharmonia, they were swamped with a gaggle of equestrians-to-be, and though Hubert felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on edge under so many eyes, Ferdinand chatted away happily to them, explaining every loop and buckle while Hubert and Philharmonia shared an anxious look.

Ferdinand really did have good taste in horses. Philharmonia was just under two years old, and yet her warhorse lineage had her standing very tall, those powerful hooves more than a little intimidating to Hubert’s scrawny frame. But as he managed to hoist himself up onto Waltraud, he realised that Philharmonia was still smaller than her, Ferdinand sitting lower than Hubert as they headed out the gates together.

“Enjoying the view from up there?” Ferdinand asked as they both automatically saluted the guards standing beneath the outer gate.

“It’s certainly different to riding Kantabel,” Hubert replied, gripping tighter than necessary to his reins.

“Perhaps you ought to get used to it,” said Ferdinand. “From how big Philharmonia is already, I won’t be surprised if she ends up the same size as Waltraud.”

“Get used to it?” Hubert asked. They’d come to the fork in the road that divided the paths between Enbarr and the outskirts, their steeds drawing the eyes of the early morning wanderers between the palace and the city. “Why? Would you have me ride her eventually?”

“I would let anyone ride her, were they able to prove themselves capable of doing so,” said Ferdinand, tossing his head and staring down the path.

Hubert longed to snark about how Ferdinand would be the only person he’d ever judge worthy of her, but something about that same palpable distance between them stopped him. The idea of them being so estranged as to no longer argue was horrifying. But he did not know what to fill that silence with instead, and so they stayed quiet together all the way up the hill, out of Enbarr. They reached the crest of the ravine through which the River Enbarr flowed, and stood still together, looking out at the water so many hundreds of feet below them. It was strange to think of how many different landscapes they had seen together by now. Stranger still to think of those which they had not shared.

“Ferdinand?”

The Prime Minister looked over at him. The light had increased, and the angle changed, but Ferdinand seemed to exude a glow all of his own, now. Perhaps it was only the flyaway hairs coming loose from that stupid wave of ginger that he refused to tie up, but he was just as radiant as he had been in the dawn. He’d look just the same in the harsh light of noon, in the washed-out light of twilight, in the darkness of midnight, Hubert just knew it.

It hurt to look at.

“What is it?”

Hubert looked down, to where his gloved hands were entangled in the embroidery of Waltraud’s reins.

“I want to apologise-”

Ferdinand looked behind him, at the hill trail they had just climbed, and Hubert’s stomach twisted at the fear that he had made the unflappable Ferdinand von Aegir embarrassed.

“Let’s go on a little further,” said Ferdinand.

Hubert felt as if he were about to catch on fire from how the shame burned within him, but nodded nonetheless, and followed him as they continued up the path. The few cottages huddled on this inhospitable side of the Palace soon gave way to bare patches of trees and scrub. And still they kept riding, until the Palace was fully behind them, and no further homes dotted their path. Up here, at the very peak of the Enbarr Ridge, the ground was almost solely rock. What trees grew were scraggly things, roots spreading wide in their desperate search for soil, all of it blanketed in the damp orange leaves of late autumn. But Ferdinand had not yet gone as far as he intended.

Hubert found his mouth going dry and his back beginning to prickle with sweat as they continued on, along the ridge and toward the great, dark forests behind the city. They had ridden in silence since Hubert’s horrible attempt at starting conversation, and Hubert was beginning to find it bearable. It was soothing, after all, to hear only the hollow clop of their horses’ hooves, the cold bite of the wind across the ravine and the steady sound of his own breath. He wondered if Ferdinand was panting yet. He doubted it. Ferdinand rode like the champion he should have been, had he been born to kinder times. Lifting his head, Hubert could see the perfect posture of the man that rode before him, his back effortlessly straight despite the rise and fall of Philharmonia’s gait, the way he seemed to breathe into the movement, his hips moving in perfect sync with every bounce and fall.

Hubert found himself growing even sweatier.

From high up here, he could see all the way down to the forests that cradled the basin where the Rivers Enbarr and Hresvelg met. Surely Ferdinand did not intend to take him all the way down to that sea of pines. Hubert was no stranger to the dark and labyrinthine places of the world, but he was riding with the Prime Minister. One had to take matters of security.

“Perhaps it’s cheating,” Ferdinand said out of the blue, “To train a horse in rough riding by taking her to the same place over and over again.”

Hubert licked his lips, did his best to sound more put-together than he felt.

“Not if it is a place she must ride to often,” he said. “Then it is simply practical.”

Ferdinand hummed. From behind, his expression was hidden. Hubert gave Waltraud a little jostle to try and get her to catch up, but she wasn’t about to take directions from him. She simply continued on apace, focusing as intently on Ferdinand as Hubert did.

“I used to come riding out here when I was a kid,” Ferdinand continued. “When my father kept me out of war meetings, and you and Edelgard gave me the slip.”

“Sorry about that,” said Hubert, feeling acutely as if he were on display, a horse on the auction block.

“Oh, I don’t blame you,” said Ferdinand, his voice just as level. “I’d have given myself the slip, too.”

Hubert realised that he was looking up and to their right, the side to where the Palace had once been. With it long behind them, he saw instead a jutting outcrop of rock reaching up and out over their path, stretching into the clear white sky.

“Are we to climb that?” he asked, his voice sounding something like mush in his ears.

“No climbing necessary,” said Ferdinand. “The rear side is a gentle enough incline for even Philharmonia to manage. Unless,” and at last, he turned in the saddle to face Hubert, “You have a problem with the height?”

Hubert felt his pulse begin to race, though it had very little to do with the towering crag above them, and a lot more to do with the dare in Ferdinand’s eyes.

“No problem at all,” said Hubert. “It’s your spot, after all.”

Ferdinand blinked, and Hubert found himself leaning forward, desperate to catch his expression, but too soon he was turned back ahead, beginning to lead Philomena to the right and toward the rear slope up the crag. Hubert screwed his eyes shut, and swallowed his pride for what could not be the last time that day. If he could handle sitting on a horse higher than a man, he could handle a ledge of solid rock that had stood strong for decades. Even if he did blanch when Philharmonia skittered on a pebble and convinced him the whole thing would come tumbling down.

Taking Waltraud up the slope as slowly as he could – the giant beast finally catching onto the trepidation of her rider – Ferdinand was already dismounted by the time he got to the peak. There wasn’t much up there for a smattering of trees, only one of them of any considerable height, but the ground was covered in stringy grass instead of bare rock, and Ferdinand seemed to be enjoying it. At the very least, the sheer emptiness of the view had captivated him. Hubert slid – very carefully – from Waltraud and looped her lead rope around the same smaller tree Ferdinand had tied Philharmonia’s line to. And suddenly the great weight of that distance was back upon him, every step he took toward Ferdinand more difficult than the last.

But he made it. He almost wished he hadn’t, not when he looked out over the view. He’d thought it empty before, but it truly was. That blank, flat sky of autumn stretching out over everything, and only the very bottom of his vision featuring any kind of landscape was terrifying enough on its own, but realising that the smudge of colour visible far beneath him was the ravine, yet another stretch of nothingness, set Hubert’s legs quaking.

“Are you alright, Hubert?” Ferdinand did not sound teasing this time. Indeed, he sounded more earnest than Hubert had heard in weeks. “You look as if you are about to faint.”

“I always look like that,” Hubert muttered, offering him a thin smile.

Ferdinand crossed his arms, and the sigh he let out was piteously subtle. It was not the sigh of a spoiled child demanding a fifth pony. It was the sigh of a man wronged, and then wronged again. The only thing that hurt worse than hearing such a noise from Ferdinand was knowing that he was the one responsible for it.

“I would feel a little better if we could sit away from the ledge, instead,” said Hubert, and while Ferdinand did not uncross his arms, he did meet his eyes. “I hope you don’t mind, but I brought a blanket and some food. Perhaps we could have something of a picnic?”

And that, at least, was surprising enough to unfold Ferdinand, even if it did mean paying the price of receiving a funny look.

“I didn’t have the chance to eat breakfast,” Hubert found himself explaining.

“Since when do you care about making sure you eat right?” Ferdinand asked, heading back to the horses. “It seems you exist on coffee alone.”

“You were the one who kept nagging me to eat three square meals lest I faint on the battlefield,” said Hubert, pulling the blanket and bundle of food from Waltraud.

“Yes, and you _always_ listen to me,” drawled Ferdinand.

“I do when you’re right.”

Ferdinand was silent as Hubert stretched out the blanket in the lee of the only tall tree, some several feet back from both the horses and the edge. Neither of them spoke, even as Hubert began to unpack the food as a peace offering, and Ferdinand came to sit beside him just as quiet.

“I meant what I said,” said Hubert as he stared down a chunk of ham. “I would like to apologise.”

“What for?” Ferdinand asked. Hubert wasn’t sure where he was looking. “Following orders?”

“Yes,” said Hubert. “And… no. I wasn’t outside the decision-making process. I made choices of my own. Choices like excluding you.”

“That was your call?”

Hubert thought for a moment. Did his silence bely his guilt, or would it make Ferdinand think he was lying?

“It wasn’t as if I was asked,” he said eventually. “We never even considered inviting anyone else along. For all our lives, we knew this would be our final task, the only way things could end for us. And it was only ever Edelgard who could deal that fonal blow, who deserved to do so. I was just the one to sweep the path before her.”

“But the Professor,” Ferdinand was saying, and now Hubert could tell he was facing him, even if Hubert himself was too much a coward to meet that no doubt furious gaze. “You said the Professor came with you.”

“Professor Byleth has a habit of knowing too much and too little all at once,” said Hubert. “If it makes you feel any better, I did have several contingency plans to assassinate them if they let anything at all slip.”

Ferdinand swallowed.

“But Edelgard… she would never have let me do that,” Hubert continued. “Besides, as she pointed out, the Professor wields a strength unlike anyone else’s.” Hubert screwed his eyes shut. “But nobody else… we never considered anyone else to join us. It would have felt wrong, to drag people who trusted us into that.”

“You dragged us into the war,” said Ferdinand.

Hubert looked up at him. The world was colder than it had been, and from Ferdinand he could sense only greater chill.

“Not that I begrudge you for doing so,” the Prime Minster continued, letting his own gaze fall. “But I simply thought… Had I not proven myself?”

“Ferdinand?” Hubert’s brow creased.

“After all these years, do you still not trust me? Am I still my father’s lackey in your eyes, an unexpected obstacle for you to drag along your chosen path?”

Hubert dug his hands into the black suede of his riding pants and found himself regretting everything he’d said in years.

“Of course I trust you.”

“But not enough for this,” finished Ferdinand.

“It isn’t a matter of _trust_ ,” Hubert snapped, rising on his knees. “Would you be so upset if I refused to take you to an assassination? If I tortured people without you? Would you demand to be taken along to the torching of somewhere that had once been a home? This wasn’t for you to see!”

“That was not your call to make!” And Ferdinand had risen to kneel too, the both of them inches from each other and swimming in the kind of fury that had defined their academy days. “Have you perhaps forgotten all the blood I shed during the war? I am not some innocent you found in the monastery, I am the Prime Minister and I intend to take on all of the responsibilities of that role, not matter how hideous.”

“This was not war,” Hubert said, forcing his voice into some semblance of calm. “This was a massacre in response to a massacre, in response to a massacre, and so on _ad infinitum_. Every choice we made down there was driven by more than just strategy. Edelgard did not want to kill these people simply because they represented a threat to the people. She wanted to kill them because she hated them. And I must say I felt the same.”

Ferdinand was staring at him, scrutinising his face for something, anything.

“The people deserve better than a Prime Minister soaked in loathing,” Hubert continued. “We needed you up here, so badly we did not even consider the potential benefits of bringing you with us. When I walked through your stables this morning, I was amazed. I had spent all night pouring over a very simple security plan for a single day of a festival, but you had managed to pull together an academy of your own in just a few months.”

“It’s really nothing yet,” said Ferdinand. His hands were still clenched into fists against his thighs.

“I know,” said Hubert. “You’re capable of great and incredible things. And if I had to make the choice again, whether to bring you along or not, knowing now what you had accomplished while I was off ending lives and taking revenge, I am afraid I would make the same choice I did before. Enbarr – all of Fódlan – needed you more than we did. I am not ashamed to admit that.”

Above them, the last few leaves clinging to the branches of the tree shivered in the wind. Ferdinand was shaking his head, but he did not seem to be disagreeing with anything. It looked more like he was trying to clear out his brain.

“I just wish you had told me.” His voice was tight.

“If we had told you, and Edelgard ordered you to stay in Enbarr anyway, you would have done nothing but worry.”

Ferdinand’s laughter rang out, clearer than the lifting chill of the morning.

“What, you think I did not worry?” He fixed Hubert with a stare, sheer disbelief in his eyes. “I did nothing but. Every single time you dodged one of my questions, or burnt a missive or hid your bloodied clothes, I was convinced you were inches from death. I spent so many nights awake while you were away from the palace, convinced my last words to you would have been something trivial about the state of the kitchen-gardens instead of something you needed to hear, that I needed to say.” He shook his head again, a miserable laugh tossed from his chest. “I am sorry Hubert, but if your intention was to keep me free from the worries of your mission, you failed in every way.”

Hubert swallowed.

“You were truly so concerned?”

Ferdinand stared at him. It was growing harder and harder to meet that gaze, and yet, Hubert’s desire to do so only kept increasing.

“Of course I was, Hubert. If I am to be honest, I still worry. Especially after what you told me told me, about the depths of your emotion in whatever it was you were doing.” He paused. “Whoever it was you were killing.”

Hubert wanted to look away, to the sky, to the horses, to anything that was not this conversation. But after everything, the least Ferdinand deserved was his attention.

“I think you deserve to know,” he said, his voice quieter than he had intended. “But I am afraid I cannot tell you – _only_ ,” he says, lifting a hand to forestall complaints before they come, “Only because it is Edelgard’s story, not my own.”

“I see,” said Ferdinand.

“But I will talk to her,” said Hubert. “She trusts you, too. She would not have left Enbarr in your hands did she not, after all.”

Ferdinand nodded, his eyes now cast down upon the blanket. They were still kneeling, Hubert realised. Were they getting old now, that they could not rise all the way to their feet before arguing? The thought could have been comical were it not terrifying.

“What else would you like to know?” Hubert asked, and Ferdinand shot him a confused look. “I told you I trust you,” Hubert continued. “And I meant it. What else do you want to know, to prove it?”

“I am not going to make you spill state secrets just to assuage my ego,” Ferdinand said, though a smile was beginning to return to his face.

“The state secrets, you have,” said Hubert, leaning down so he was sitting once more, and even closer to Ferdinand.

“All of them?” asked Ferdinand.

“Of course,” said Hubert. “You _were_ the state, while we were away.”

Ferdinand returned to his earlier recline, mirroring Hubert’s posture. With their legs outstretched and their heads tilted toward each other, they could have been Garreg Mach students relaxing in the lawns by the gazebo.

“I am afraid all the state secrets are terribly boring, then,” said Ferdinand. “I gave out a few un-recorded “loans” to the people of Myrddin that I have no intentions of collecting-”

“Scandalous,” muttered Hubert, and got a swat for his troubles.

“-And I gave Arundel’s strongest warhorses to the people of Remire to use as plough-animals.”

Hubert stared at him.

“What?” snapped Ferdinand.

“You should lead with that, when you talk to Edelgard,” he said. “I think she’d love it.”

Ferdinand stared back, small smiles beginning to blossom across both of their faces.

“I meant what I said, though,” said Hubert. “Any of my secrets are yours, to make up for worrying you so.”

“You’re starting to sound as if you want to tell me something but need an excuse,” said Ferdinand, cocking an eyebrow.

Hubert hadn’t seen such a playful look from him in so long.

“I missed you,” he blurted, and Ferdinand’s expression dissolved into pure shock.

Hubert longed to say more and to run away all at once, but his body seemed to have locked itself tight, keeping him silent and staring.

“I missed you, too.” In the quiet breathiness of Ferdinand’s voice, Hubert could hear only the truth.

Their faces were so close. It was nothing at all to tilt his chin, to lean a little closer. Nothing at all to feel the nervous stutter of Ferdinand’s breath before their lips met, and everything was silent and screaming all at once. He was afraid to do anything drastic, if anything could be more drastic than sliding his lips across Ferdinand’s mere moments after an argument. Hubert longed to feel Ferdinand’s hair rush through his fingers, to taste the inside of his mouth and feel the press of that powerful chest against his own. He could not do that, though. Instead, he let his lips brush by Ferdinand’s as light as the breeze, teasing in their gentle fluttering instead of the deep seal he longed for.

Until Ferdinand caught his lower lip between his teeth.

Hubert made a noise he could not describe, could not even locate beyond a clenching of his vocal cords, as Ferdinand dragged his teeth across the fullness of Hubert’s lip, the both of them sitting in silence as they slipped away, Hubert’s lip bouncing to red plumpness under their care.

Hubert opened his eyes, desperate to see Ferdinand. He was looking, too. Searching. Hungry.

Ferdinand leant his head forward, so his mouth was level with Hubert’s ear.

“Would you like to know a secret?”

Hubert shivered.

“Always.”

That seemed to throw Ferdinand for a loop, until Hubert realised he could _hear_ him smiling, the shape of his breath changing as he grinned.

“I have a favourite memory,” said Ferdinand. Hubert swallowed. “I think of it often, and it never fails to cheer me up, even though it’s a memory of the war.”

Hubert’s mind raced, spinning like a wheel on a stuck cart, with absolutely no clue of what Ferdinand was referring to.

“Even though it’s of us arguing.”

Hubert’s mind jammed, and so did his breath. Ferdinand laughed a hot little blast against his ear.

“Oh? Do you remember it, too?”

Hubert pressed his mortified face against the picnic blanket beneath them, feeling the contours of the grass beneath is right cheek. Ferdinand, however, was not ready to let up, following his movements with a bend of his own so that his head hovered above Hubert’s, and a hand came to steady himself by resting on Hubert’s hip.

Ferdinand did have such wonderfully strong, wide hands. Hubert remembered that, from-

“Stable duty,” murmured Ferdinand in his ear. “Do you remember? After that horrible expedition to clear out bandits, right before we left to face Dimitri?”

“It was raining,” Hubert whispered.

Ferdinand rubbed his thumb against Hubert’s hipbone in reward.

“It was,” said Ferdinand. “Everyone was so wet and miserable. Especially the horses. All the leather was stiff in the cold and it took us so long to get everyone unsaddled, and all we did the whole time was argue. About the battle, about the horse tack, about the state of the stables and whose job it was to clean them. And do you remember what you said?”

Hubert swallowed. He longed to get a hand on Ferdinand himself, to have some kind of contact besides that wonderful tease of a hand at his hips, but with Ferdinand baring down over him, his arms were trapped.

“I said…” Hubert licked his lips. “’Considering how often you’re in here wallowing in horse shit, it’s a wonder there’s still so much left on the floor.’”

“And I just saw red.” Ferdinand’s voice was lower than Hubert had imagined it could go, and despite his desperation to hear more of it, his body hummed with the need to pull Ferdinand back into a kiss and give him what he deserved. “In fact, I got so angry, I don’t think I can describe what happened next.” The hand at his hip rolled back to cup at Hubert’s ass. “Why don’t you tell me?”

Hubert couldn’t take it, he forced a hand up through the space between them and fisted in Ferdinand’s hair, dragging him down to meet his mouth again. He may have been bolder, more insistent with his lips, but some shyness still lingered as he refrained from getting his tongue involved, his head far too busy with memories. Though, of course, that night in the stables was so different to this.

“Tell me, Hubert,” Ferdinand purred against his lips. “Tell me what happened.”

Hubert pulled him down closer, so that they rested against each other’s necks and he could hide his blushing face in the flow of Ferdinand’s hair.

“You yelled at me,” he whispered. “Though I don’t remember what you said. My memories are too full of how you backed me up against the wall and called me a swine and rutted against me until I came so hard I cried.”

The two of them were quiet, Ferdinand’s swallow sounding sharp in Hubert’s ear.

“And I thought about it every night since,” said Ferdinand. “At first I thought I’d made a terrible mistake, that you’d see me strung up for daring to treat you like that, no matter how much you begged for it. But you didn’t avoid me. In fact, you started getting even closer to me. We had all those wonderful afternoon teas together, and you bought me gifts and paid me compliments and I started to think that maybe you had enjoyed being roughed around a little.” He pressed a thumb against Hubert’s lip and Hubert felt his eyes flutter shut. “That there could be something between us.”

“And then I left.”

The hand at Hubert’s hip stilled in a stroke Hubert had barely even noticed.

“It wasn’t as if you completely disappeared,” said Ferdinand. “You just seemed busy. I should have asked-”

“You did ask,” said Hubert, his nose nuzzling into Ferdinand’s neck. “Many, many times you asked what I was doing and when I would be free and I dodged the question every time.”

“No,” said Ferdinand. “I meant… I should have asked how you felt. About me.”

Hubert stroked Ferdinand’s hair, letting the strands run through his fingers as he marvelled at its sheer silkiness, so soft and cool against his nerve-damaged hands.

“I can hardly blame you for not doing so,” he murmured. “I… find myself more intimidated of such conversations than most other things.”

“Find? Present tense?” asked Ferdinand. He was smiling against the slip of skin between Hubert’s chin and high shirt collar. Hubert never wanted to him to leave.

“Perhaps certain circumstances are alleviating some of the anxiety,” Hubert replied and Ferdinand chuckled, sending Hubert’s heart jumping into his throat as he squeezed his ass. His next words came out considerably breathier. “I also found myself thinking of that night in the stables on a near constant basis.”

“So?”

“…So?” asked Hubert, fear back and running through his veins.

“So, how _do_ you feel about me?” asked Ferdinand, leaning back to fix Hubert with a stare.

Hubert sighed, a smile at the corner of his eyes, before diving forward to return his lips to Ferdinand’s. He did not hold back this time. His own teeth came down to bite at Ferdinand’s in reply to his earlier teasing, a wonderful gasp spilling from him upon impact. He had to get closer, drag his hands through Ferdinand’s hair and pull him as tight as possible. Ferdinand shifted as he groaned through the entrance of Hubert’s tongue and their knees knocked together, the momentary jolt filling Hubert with memories of being slammed against Ferdinand’s legs in the stables, the hot press of his bulge against Hubert’s drawing pleasure from him mercilessly, over and over again. Hubert whined like the lapdog Ferdinand had long ago accused him of being, and grasped at Ferdinand’s thigh, drawing up and over his own so he could nestle between those wonderfully strong legs. Hubert was hard already, but just thinking about how Ferdinand had held him up against the wall and used him those months ago was always enough to get him going. He rolled forward, searching for Ferdinand and finding an embarrassed cry instead, Ferdinand pulling back from his lips to hide in his neck.

“Sorry,” murmured Hubert, running a hand up and down Ferdinand’s thigh, the twitch and pull of muscle beneath his fingers sending his mind flailing in circles.

“Tell me,” Ferdinand said, his voice urgent. The hand teasing at Hubert’s ass instead came up to grip at his jacket at his lower back, nearly pinching the skin as he did so. “Tell me how you feel about me, what you think of me, what I look like in your eyes.”

Ferdinand squeezed himself tighter around Hubert as he sighed, though Hubert longed to pull him back and look him in the eyes, he knew for a fact that Ferdinand was so wonderfully stronger than him.

“I missed you,” Hubert repeated against the shell of Ferdinand’s ear. “I missed you even when we were talking, when we would sit together at dinner and you would talk of your horse and her breeding and your grooms, when I wanted all of your attention.”

“Why?”

Hubert genuinely could not tell if Ferdinand was just teasing him, trying to make him say everything that was so hard to get out, or if Ferdinand just wanted to hear it. If maybe he was really in need of the reassurance.

“You’re _marvelous_ ,” whispered Hubert, gripping tighter to his thigh. “If I thought you had been hiding some secret from me, I wouldn’t have been able to focus on anything, let alone establish an entire riding academy while reorganising the remnants of the church and coordinating rebuilding efforts. Watching you at work is like watching a river flow. Effortless. Though you do work so very hard, I do not begrudge you any frustration that may emerge… Especially if I am their target.”

“Hubert,” said Ferdinand, and it was something between a laugh and a chastisement and a sigh and a thousand other things. Hubert wanted to hear nothing else for the rest of his life.

“To say nothing of how you look,” Hubert continued, pinching at Ferdinand’s thigh.

“Oh…?” whispered Ferdinand.

“That hungry for flattery, are you?” laughed Hubert, and Ferdinand tensed in his hands. “I’m not surprised, considering how you’ve earned it.”

“Nice save,” muttered Ferdinand, his hand returning to stroke at the cleft of Hubert’s ass.

“You surprised me, is all,” said Hubert, his own hand on Ferdinand’s thigh stilling as he focused only on Ferdinand’s hand. “Hard to think of someone as gorgeous as you needing any reassurance. You haunt my dreams, you know. It doesn’t matter what I’m thinking of before I fall asleep, I’ll always end up swimming in your beautiful hair. It’s softer than I thought it would be, but stronger, too. I pictured it as being fluffy, almost, but instead it’s like silk.”

Ferdinand’s hot breath at his neck grew even warmer, and Hubert realised he was mouthing at the skin, the gentle tease of a tongue, the finest scrape of teeth sending Hubert’s mind reeling.

“I missed you when we were face to face, when we were getting along the best we ever did,” Hubert found himself saying, things he had never realised before. “I missed you when you hated me and I missed you when you loved me because no matter what you thought of me, you didn’t touch me.”

“You didn’t touch me either,” said Ferdinand.

“Allow me to rectify that, then.”

Hubert’s hand stroked all the way up the side of Ferdinand’s leg and up along the side of his torso to come around the front of Ferdinand’s neck, his hand cupping it close enough to feel his pulse. Ferdinand swallowed, his Adam’s apple bumping against Hubert’s palm. Ferdinand sighed as Hubert’s fingers slipped away from his throat to reach for his cravat, rolling the silk across his knuckles to press it to his lips.

“Hubert…” Ferdinand murmured.

Hubert pulled the cravat from its knot and wound it about his fingers, giving a soft hum as he did so.

“Hubert, this is going to take forever.”

Hubert looked up from where he was lavishing affection upon Ferdinand’s cravat to see him leaning up and smiling down on him. Hubert felt a blush crawling up his face under that gaze, a kind of fond amusement crinkling Ferdinand’s eyes as he rose up from his recline into a kneeling sit.

“Are you not having fun?” asked Hubert, going for teasing and ending up entirely too nervous.

Ferdinand’s smile slipped into sincerity as he shed his jacket and went straight to work on his shirt buttons.

“I’d like to be having fun a little faster,” Ferdinand grinned, pulling his shirtsleeves down over his shoulders.

Hubert was on him in an instant. Ferdinand laughed as Hubert’s hands only got in the way of his attempts at undoing the last of his buttons, his fingers tracing over every inch of skin he could find.

“I’ve missed this too,” Hubert said, giving Ferdinand a pinch to his nipple.

“ _Missed_ this? My dear, when have you ever experienced me-” and he was cut off with a gasp as Hubert squeezed him tight, pushing him back to lie against the picnic blanket once again.

Hubert grinned down at the sight spread out before him, Ferdinand’s wonderous locks spilling out behind him in a veil of tangled curls, his wide muscled chest bouncing as he laughed under Hubert’s ministrations. The orange glow of sunrise may have disappeared, but in the cold white of day, all the firelight Hubert could need was right the beneath him. Hubert grinned as Ferdinand’s breath stuttered as he cupped his breast, squeezed his pecs tight and sighed at the feel of the strength beneath his fingers, that strength he had felt up against him only once before and dreamed of ever since.

Hubert returned his mouth to where it belonged, fitting perfectly against Ferdinand’s, bearing down against him to fit their bodies together, his kneeling legs interlocking with Ferdinand’s spread ones, giving Hubert the perfect opportunity to knee at Ferdinand’s crotch. First brush only got him a whimper, wonderful to hear, but nowhere near enough, not from the man who ground up against him hard enough to leave him sitting funny for days. The next press did better, though Hubert hardly noticed it. He’d gone to suck at Ferdinand’s nipple just to tease him, but that warm slope of flesh beneath his face, ginger chest hair tickling at his nose as Ferdinand’s whimpers danced in his ears was enough to convince Hubert that he should do nothing but this for the rest of his days.

Ferdinand grasped at his shoulders and Hubert only melted closer to his chest, licking a stripe up his sternum as Ferdinand pulled at his shirt, feeling his own hands begin to tremble in wonder at what was happening. Ferdinand von Aegir was beneath him, those beautiful noble fingers scrabbling across his back, the strong arms of a knight pulling him close, that deliciously prominent chest heaving beneath his tongue. Hubert sighed, both his thumbs coming up to rub against nipples in mirrored swirls. Ferdinand made a noise like a gag, and pulled even tighter at his collar. 

“Will you get this accursed shirt off?” he grumbled, and Hubert felt a twinge of embarrassment to think that Ferdinand hadn’t merely been grasping for purchase against him.

And then his stomach sank further at the idea of being shirtless in front of Ferdinand. A childish notion, really, and one he fought through as he sat back slightly, giving Ferdinand room to tear apart his buttons, but he could not banish it entirely. Not even when Ferdinand pushed the shirt down off his arms and rubbed his hands tantalisingly soft over Hubert’s torso. Where Ferdinand was the model of knightly strength and beauty, Hubert was more like a rectangle with the occasional discolouration or scar.

But Ferdinand seemed to be enjoying it. He pushed himself upright, the two of them sitting up once again, and dove immediately to bite at Hubert’s collarbone. Hubert made a distinctly unsexy grunt at that, but Ferdinand really didn’t seem to notice, not with how eagerly his teeth scraped across Hubert’s clavicle, down over his patchy chest hair and planting a gentle kiss over a nipple that he wasted no time in pinching. Hubert gasped, his cock twitching in rapidly tightening jodhpurs. When their mouths met again, the kiss was strangely gentle, despite the insatiability rampant between them. Hubert sighed, the push and pull of his tongue against Ferdinand’s the perfect counterpoint to the merciless strokes of Ferdinand’s fingers at his chest.

Hubert’s hands wandered on their own, one snaking around Ferdinand’s back to sit above his ass, hold him close and hold him firm, while the other stroked down over his abdomen to rest feather-light above Ferdinand’s bulge. The breath against Hubert’s mouth grew hotter, heavier. He found himself circling Ferdinand, his fingers dipping as close as they could to his tent without ever giving it more than a passing brush. Ferdinand’s mouth slipped off Hubert’s his head coming to rest on Hubert’s shoulder as he panted heavier and heavier with each pass of his hand. 

And then Hubert cupped him and squeezed.

“Fuck! You…” Ferdinand panted, dissolving into a gasp.

Even though the words clearly weren’t meant to be a single phrase, Hubert couldn’t help himself.

“Would you like to?”

“Wh-?” Ferdinand breathed near his ear, words disappearing as Hubert squeezed his dick once again, his heart racing at the feel of it twitching beneath his palm.

“Would you like to fuck me, Ferdinand?” Hubert asked, only adrenaline keeping him from laughing his own suggestion off. He had Ferdinand’s dick in hand – or close enough – and his bare chest pressed up against him, mouth hot and wandering across his neck. The time for hesitation was long behind him.

“Oh, _yes_ ,” Ferdinand groaned, one hand coming up to grab onto Hubert’s hair and his hips stuttering to thrust against Hubert’s hand. “Hubert,” he whispered, and Hubert found himself suddenly unable to swallow.

“Please,” said Hubert, and suddenly he was tired of teasing.

The hand at his back joined the one at his front in making quick work of Ferdinand’s fly buttons. Though he did so adore those smooth, skin-tight jodhpurs and how they put Ferdinand’s muscles on display, just looking at them was nothing compared to the feeling of rolling them off, hearing Ferdinand whimper as they caught on his swollen cock. Hubert only got them down to Ferdinand’s knees, not only because he was kneeling, but the distraction of Ferdinand’s bulging smallclothes was too much to bear.

“Hubert…”

Hubert could feel his own cock straining at the lacing of his own smalls, and his breath came out in hot little sighs as he worked Ferdinand’s free. Goddess, he really was broad everywhere. Hubert licked his lip, wrapping a hand around the shaft to toy at his slit with his thumb. He was already leaking, and his jolt at the feel of Hubert’s hand only sent more precum pooling at the tip.

“Hubert,” Ferdinand said again, a little more urgent.

Hubert’s free hand kneaded at the junction between thigh and hip as he continued to tease Ferdinand.

“Having fun yet?” he asked.

“Hubert, how are we going to do this?”

Hubert’s hand stilled.

“Hm?” he asked.

“Listen, I know you managed to bring along a blanket,” said Ferdinand, scratching lightly at Hubert’s hair, “But I can’t imagine you thought to pack any sort of… lubrication.”

“Ah,” said Hubert. He truly had not thought of that, and now his dreams of having his face rubbed in the dirt while Ferdinand ploughed into him from behind were starting to look a little unrealistic.

Thankfully, however, he had no shortage of fantasies.

“I have another idea, then,” said Hubert.

And as the hand on Ferdinand’s dick began to stroke him, still a little tentative, still not quite familiar with the shape of it, the hand at his thigh lifted up to where one of Ferdinand’s hands tangled with Hubert’s hair. It took a little coaxing to get those fingers to let go, but once they were at Hubert’s mercy, he drew them straight to his mouth.

Ferdinand, who had been doing so well at keeping quiet beneath the ministrations to his dick, moaned, open and loud, as Hubert sucked two of his fingers deep into his mouth, letting his teeth scrape against them and absolutely lavishing them with his tongue.

“Hubert,” said Ferdinand, and then seemed to lose coherence as Hubert licked at the junction between the two fingers. “I _really_ hope you’re not suggest…” Hubert sucked hard at the fingers right as he squeezed his cock a little tighter. “Not _suggesting_ that you can make this work with – _oh_ …” Hubert’s hand stuttered as his attention was taken up by the pull of Ferdinand’s fingers at his cheeks. “You can’t do this with spit alone,” Ferdinand finally got out.

Hubert pulled the fingers from his mouth with a long, slow suck.

“Why, Ferdinand,” he said, holding Ferdinand’s hand in place against his lips. “I would never suggest something so crass.”

“Well, what exactly are you trying to do, th-”

Ferdinand’s voice disappeared with his fingers as Hubert opened his mouth and took both fingers in to the hilt. And then pushed them in even further. His grip on Ferdinand’s wrist only tightened as he pressed his hand in further and further to the back of his throat until he felt that wonderful tight urge, the faint lingerings of a gag-reflex he had long ago learned to combat, and swallowed around Ferdinand’s fingers.

Ferdinand bucked up hard enough into Hubert’s hand to slick precum right up the inside of his wrist.

Hubert groaned, deliberately loud and lascivious as he released Ferdinand’s hands, looking at him through eyes near-closed.

“Do you like my mouth?”

Ferdinand lurched forward, the angle forcing Hubert to let go of his cock as Ferdinand pinned him back onto the blanket. Goddess, he was strong. Hubert prayed he’d leave marks.

“I find myself rather fond of it, as long as no words are coming out of it.”

“Let’s find some other task to put it to, then,” grinned Hubert.

As Hubert stretched out on his back, getting as comfortable as he could on the uneven ground beneath the blanket, Ferdinand hopped to his feet and pulled his boots and clothes off with a speed Hubert had not anticipated. He looked more than a little silly, ninety-percent naked and flailing about on one foot, but the joke Hubert was trying to summon died on his tongue. More than amusing, Ferdinand just looked… endearing. The thought of someone – of _Ferdinand von Aegir_ – being so eager to sleep with him brought twin heats of joy and mortification to his heart.

“How would you have me?” Ferdinand was kneeling by his side again, and Hubert couldn’t help but reach up and brush his fingers through the strands of orange that tickled at his face.

“As viciously and vigorously as you can manage,” drawled Hubert in reply.

Ferdinand gave his cheek a little smack.

“I meant-”

“I know,” said Hubert, smiling. “Come here, kneel over my face. No, the other way, dear, so you’re facing over my body.”

Ferdinand’s thighs bracketed his head as he moved to follow Hubert’s instructions, those strong, calloused hands coming down to brace him against Hubert’s chest. Hubert’s breath stuttered, his arms coming up to hold those strong thighs encasing him in a wall of warmth. Ferdinand was perfect, utterly sublime. Hubert licked his lips.

“Hubert, your trousers are still on.”

“Leave them,” Hubert groaned. He didn’t have time to explain it, how much he adored the idea of being used by Ferdinand, untouched as he was fucked, his own pleasure bursting at the seams but ultimately meaningless before the sheer monument of hedonism that was Ferdinand’s release. He couldn’t stop thinking about that night in the stables where everything, from how Ferdinand gripped Hubert’s thigh, pulling it up and to the side in an angle sharp enough to sting, to the relentless friction of their erections against each other, it had all been for Ferdinand. He had taken what he wanted, and Hubert, somehow, had been able to give it to him.

“Alright,” said Hubert. He couldn’t keep his eyes open.

His mouth, however, was another story.

Ferdinand was slow, agonisingly so, as he let his hips sink down onto Hubert’s face, guiding his cock to Hubert’s waiting mouth. He faltered as his tip met the tongue, a little whimper escaping as his thighs shook, but Hubert gripped them tighter, breathed slow against Ferdinand’s heavy cock until he began to descend again. With each inch, Hubert groaned, walled in my ecstasy on all sides. Every movement of Ferdinand’s hips was telegraphed by the flexing of thigh muscles beneath Hubert’s hands, muscles that were so thick Hubert could only grab onto a fraction of them. And how they locked him in, keeping him trapped in that glorious hot prison of Ferdinand’s body as he pressed further and further into him, stretching his lips tight and spreading the heat further down his body as Ferdinand leaned down across Hubert’s torso to get the angle right. It should have felt ridiculous, having Ferdinand’s balls pressed across his nose as he bottomed out, but Hubert was long past thinking objectively. If it brought Ferdinand pleasure, then it was a wonder of the world.

And considering how Ferdinand was panting, he seemed to be in no shortage of pleasure.

“How are you doing, Hubert?” Ferdinand’s voice was distant, even as the press of his hands on his hipbones seemed like the most urgent sensation in the world.

Hubert groaned, deep, throaty and adoring, rubbing small circles in Ferdinand’s thigh with his thumbs.

“Hah, oh… That does feel nice,” panted Ferdinand. “You making noises when I am…” His voice trailed off into an embarrassed cough.

Hubert hummed, pushing his jaw up closer to Ferdinand, trying to take as much of his cock as he could manage and feeling the wonderful stutter of him relishing in the vibrations of Hubert’s throat.

“I’m going to move now,” said Ferdinand. “If you need me to stop, please slap my leg.”

Hubert hummed again and began to knead at Ferdinand’s thighs, feeling the spring and bounce of taut muscle while dragging Ferdinand ever deeper into his mouth.

“Insatiable,” Ferdinand whispered.

Hubert, however, had no time to wonder whether he was meant to hear that, because Ferdinand was beginning to move. He couldn’t help the panic that rose within him as Ferdinand’s dick began to retreat from his mouth, the fear of the world outside Ferdinand’s heat and a life not spent on his back. But then Ferdinand came thrusting back down. Hubert whined, pitchy and pleading as his mouth was fucked, Ferdinand’s cock pushing in all the way to slam into his throat, so tight and desperate for him. Hubert groaned against him, sucked his lips tight and drank down Ferdinand’s responding cry like it was ambrosia.

Hubert was growing dizzy and only barely remembered to breathe. But with his severely limited brain function focused on remembering how to take in oxygen through his nose, Hubert wasn’t able to keep track of Ferdinand fucking into him. Instead of meeting his thrust with a groan and pursed lips and the barest shadow of teeth, Hubert simply lay there as Ferdinand took all that he could from him. Hubert gagged out a cry as his larynx was crushed, and realised belatedly that his hips were thrusting up into nowhere. He was so hard. So hard and pressed up against the inside of no doubt horribly stained jodhpurs and Ferdinand didn’t give a damn as he slammed harder and harder into Hubert’s throat.

“Oh, I do so _adore_ those groans of yours.” Ferdinand was babbling now. Hubert had no idea if that meant he was close or if he would end up incoherent. He knew nothing about how Ferdinand fucked, only how he ground Hubert against a wall, and he intended to learn absolutely everything he could. “Will you groan for me some more?” Ferdinand fucked deep into Hubert’s mouth. “I bet I could make you scream.” Hubert’s jaw dropped even further as the next thrust seemed to split him open. “Will you scream around my cock, darling?” Hubert’s eyes were lolling back in his head. “Choke on your lust as I fuck you into oblivion?”

There were tears in Hubert’s eyes and he’d never loved anything more. He almost wished his mouth was free so he could tell Ferdinand how intoxicating his words were. Almost, but not quite. Not when Ferdinand leaned forward, pressed his cock so strong against Hubert’s tongue. Hubert squeezed tighter to his thighs. Not just out of adoration, but desperation. He needed an anchor, he was getting lost, unable to tell where his thoughts ended and reality began. He could not see Ferdinand, but he longed to. He wanted to see the sweat on his face, his grin through the red hot blush that would cover his face and down over his neck. And those muscles, keeping him upright as he fucked back against Hubert’s mouth over and over again. Would his arms be shaking? Or would those thick bastions of knightly strength be steady against Hubert’s quivering body. Goddess, to think of him leaning forward, shoulders locked and his ample chest framed by strong arms, as the deep bow of his back flexed and those rider’s legs which could crush Hubert’s skull rocked him back and forth in absolute luxury. Hubert ran his hands up his thighs, reaching for his ass, only to be defeated by the angle.

Fuck, he needed to touch all of him. He needed to stay down here, hemmed in by those legs that haunt his dreams, but he was so desperate to see Ferdinand’s face. He needed all of it, that hot, ruthless drive into his throat, but his cock ached to be touched and he couldn’t shake the desire for Ferdinand to take him from behind, hold him by the hair and use him ruthlessly. Though Ferdinand’s version of “ruthless” seemed to be a lot more luscious than Hubert’s, with how he was enjoying himself with Hubert’s mouth. A slow drag against his tongue followed by an urgent pant as he eagerly fucked back into him. Not the kind of brutal, relentless pounding he’d imagined, but something more wild, hedonistic. None of his movements had any kind of rhythm or meaning. They were born only of desire.

“Was that a scream?” Ferdinand’s voice had started to slur. “Have I got you yet.”

Hubert dug his nails into Ferdinand’s thighs and was rewarded with a high-pitched gasp that sounded far more intense than either of them had anticipated. Hubert groaned deep in his throat again, and when Ferdinand pressed back in, he swallowed right at the apex of his thrust. Ferdinand convulsed, slamming forward against Hubert’s abdomen and wailed, his hips stuttering in shallow thrusts into Hubert’s mouth.

“Hubert-” he gasped, lifting his hips up, hands scrabbling at Hubert’s hipbones.

Hubert pulled him back to his mouth, tonguing desperately at his dick to keep him there.

“Hubert, please,” gasped Ferdinand, even as he kept bouncing into Hubert’s mouth. “I… I am so close.”

Hubert moaned around his dick, sucking hard as he grasped Ferdinand tight against him. If only he could say how desperately he wanted Ferdinand, but he wouldn’t give up this use of his mouth for anything. Fuck, he just needed Ferdinand to finish in him. Hubert bucked his own hips at the thought, and managed to knock his dick right into Ferdinand’s nose.

“Oh, _fuck_ ,” Ferdinand blurted, and came right down Hubert’s throat.

Hubert groaned, swallowed and managed to have enough presence of mind to not gasp and suck cum into his lungs, though he really had no control over the rest of his body. Ferdinand was slurring all manner of things, apologies and adorations all in one even as he continued to hammer into Hubert’s mouth, fucking right through his orgasm. Hubert’s cheeks were so sore, but everything stung so deliciously. That ache in the back of his throat that he’d previously associated with dry-swallowing poison to build up his immunity, but would now forever carry the weight of Ferdinand’s cock.

Ferdinand slumped forward, his dick slipping from Hubert’s hungry lips as he lay panting, pressed up against Hubert’s hipbone. Hubert lay there breathing, feeling the backdraft of Ferdinand’s taste on his tongue. He’d tasted a lot of foul things in his time, but this he could drink forever.

“Hubert,” Ferdinand gasped, and Hubert felt a shuffling around his waistline. “Trousers… You’re still hard, oh, Hubert.”

He had to stop moaning like that. Hubert would never be able to hear another sound again.

Ferdinand was fumbling with his laces, pulling away his jodhpurs and fisting around his cock, Hubert jolting up into a half-sit. Head full of cum, he still knew what he wanted to happen.

“Mm, no…” he muttered, batting Ferdinand’s head away even as his cock twitched at the sight of Ferdinand’s mouth so close to his dick. “No, darling, no, lie back.”

Ferdinand’s eyes, glazed over with the lingering euphoria of his orgasm, looked up at Hubert, pleading. He brushed his cheek against Hubert’s cock, precum smearing his freckles, a needy whine filling the air.

Huh. Hubert had forgotten they were outside.

Hubert sat up fully, leaning down to where Ferdinand sprawled against him. His hair was somehow even softer now, tousled by his wild thrusts, as his hands slipped though his hair to cradle the back of his head and push him to the floor.

“Do you want me… like that?” Ferdinand asked, his voice still slurring. How he was the one who ended up with a fucked up voice, Hubert had no idea. “Like you?’

“No, no,” murmured Hubert, stroking around to Ferdinand’s chin. “Just lie back, Ferdinand. I want to see you like this.”

Ferdinand smiled, sated and sleepy as he stretched out. He really was beautiful like this, his chest hair rumpled, cum and drool smeared across his mouth, his thick cock nestled flaccid between those thighs. Hubert had left marks, he noticed with a grin.

“At least let me do that,” Ferdinand mumbled as he realised Hubert was stroking himself.

Hubert batted away his outstretching hand, sighing as their fingers linked.

“You really are beautiful,” he murmured. Ferdinand looked up at him, a rosy glow covering his face and reaching down to blotch his chest. “Did-” Hubert’s cock stuttered in his hand. “Did you think of me?”

“Every day,” said Ferdinand, thumb stroking the outside of the hand he held. “You know I did.”

“Like this,” said Hubert, swallowing hard. “Did you think of me like this?”

Ferdinand blinked, looking up at Hubert through eyelashes so heavy they had Hubert thrusting with a grunt into his hand.

“All the time,” Ferdinand murmured. “When I was alone in my room at night, I would always think of you. When I would take tea with you, I’d see you on your knees every time I closed my eyes.” Hubert’s breath hitched. “And when you were away… I would do nothing but regret that I had only had you once, and not even. Not the way I wanted, the way you deserved, all laid out beneath me, loved and lavished-”

“Can I cum on your face?” Hubert rasped.

Ferdinand made a noise caught between a gulp and a whimper. Hubert had closed his eyes somewhere while Ferdinand was talking, but now he managed to open them just enough to see Ferdinand nodding, face flushed even deeper. Hubert whined when Ferdinand’s hand disentangled from his own, and then jolted as it came to join his around his dick, those lance callouses firm around his cock, a beautifully alien sensation.

“Go on, sweetheart,” mumbled Ferdinand. “I want it, I want you.”

Hubert’s breath stumbled at the sheer sincerity in his voice, bucked hard into their shared hands and came hard against Ferdinand, splattering him from the chest to the chin.

“Aw, you missed,” purred Ferdinand, Hubert collapsing against him. “Well, I suppose we shall have to try this again some time.”

Hubert gasped, and hoped he didn’t sound too much like a dying fish. Not when Ferdinand’s strong arm was looping up to cradle him against his abdomen, stroking him through the dizziness.

“Oh, but look at you,” Ferdinand continued. “Did you really cum this much just for me?”

Hubert blinked. Something wet sounded near his ear. He turned, and then turned bright red as he caught sight of Ferdinand running his fingers through the cum that soaked his chest, pooling between his pecs and clinging to his chest hair.

“I can give you more,” slurred Hubert. “Just give me a few days of separation and enough clues that you’ve come to hate me.”

“I don’t think I have that kind of patience.”

Ferdinand kept eye contact as he lifted a finger from the spreading pool of cum, drizzling it up his chest and neck before he slipped it between his lips. Hubert gulped in another breath.

“You don’t have to pretend that tastes good,” he said, the desire to bask in his afterglow hard at war with his returning arousal.

“It might not, but your expression certainly does,” replied Ferdinand.

Hubert let his head loll back, lifting a hand to hold Ferdinand’s that looped over his shoulder and stroked at his chest.

“I am never going to be able to get any work done ever again,” Hubert murmured against their linked fingers.

Ferdinand sighed. Hubert couldn’t tell if it was wistful, or content, or just exhausted.

“Keeping either of us from our work would take a great deal more than a nice fuck, and you know it,” he said. “And I do not mind that. In fact, I rather admire that about us.”

Hubert hummed. It was starting to feel cold again in the open air, but he didn’t mind. Sothis knew he’d dealt with worse sensations than cum cooling in the breeze.

“What else do you admire about us?” he asked, just to continue hearing his voice.

“Our honesty. Our transparency.”

Hubert shifted, no doubt getting cum in his hair, as he made sure he could look Ferdinand in the eye.

“Ferdinand.” Now that his post-orgasmic haze was starting to fade, he realised just how wrecked his voice had become. “I promise you that I will never keep my goals from you ever again. My work is your work. I-”

A great hacking cough seized him, gripping him in tight convulsions of the throat for more seconds than felt safe, until he spat something up into the grass.

“I have your cum in my respiratory system,” he continued. “There is nothing mine that is not yours.”

And Ferdinand was smiling at him, as sincere and adoring as if he had just made some grand declaration of love. Considering just what their line of work entailed, maybe he had.

“You know I swear the same to you,” he replied. “I’ll tell you everything, especially all the little details you have no interest in, like the genetics of horse blazes-”

“Then I shall describe my assassinations in detail-”

“And I’ll make you weigh in on seating arrangements-”

“And we’ll both come running to Edelgard when there’s a territory dispute.”

The two dissolved into laughter, Hubert’s head bouncing against the rise and fall of Ferdinand’s diaphragm, shaking him clear of worries.

“Oh, Goddess, I just remembered we got here on horseback,” said Ferdinand with a wince. “And I just spent all that time on my knees. My thighs are killing me.”

“Yes, I find them rather inebriating myself,” said Hubert, getting a whack upside the head “But you needn’t rush, you know. We haven’t even eaten the food I brought. And it’s still so early in the morning. Plenty of time before we need head back to the palace-”

“So, we can fuck somewhere that isn’t within twenty feet of a horse for once?”

Hubert’s skin crawled with an icy heat, even as he joined Ferdinand in laughing. Ferdinand wanted to do this again. He wanted to share his work with him. He’d thought about him, in so many different ways…

Hubert let his eyes turn to the sky. Truly there was no remnant of sunrise left amongst the white clouds over Enbarr. Ferdinand’s fingers combed through his hair, humming in gentle comfort. He’d made it, beyond the edge of dawn, to find wonders beyond his most ardent dreams.

**Author's Note:**

> As always, constructive criticism is very much desired.  
> Also, feel free to come chat with me on twitter [ @commanderfreddy](https://twitter.com/commanderfreddy)
> 
> [EDIT} Hey lads I hate to do this but fun fact, I wrote the majority of this fic the night after leaving hospital while on holiday in NYC, and I now have some pretty hefty medical bills. It's not an emergency or anything, but if you liked this fic and you'd like to help me out a little with the bills, I'd appreciate it if you could go to the link in my twitter bio (bc AO3 TOS doesn't permit direct links to it). Thank you ❤


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